CHAPTER XVI
On the Iceberg
The raft was quickly drawn up to a safe position on the “ice shore” and the castaways retreated still farther from the water’s edge in order to keep well out of reach of the heaviest waves. The smaller raft was “beached” in a similar manner, and like precaution was taken to prevent its being washed back into the sea.
Presently the moon arose and lighted the scene with ghastly effect. But the ghastliness was a thing more to be remembered afterwards. It scarcely moved their numbed senses then. Wind currents high above soon became more active, and banks of clouds were broken up and scattered as if by bursting shells, then chased one another across the sky, while the big pale-yellow queen of the night rode majestically over this deep-wide scene of dismal wilderness.
All of the women and several of the men on the iceberg were suffering so severely, as a result of the exposure, that it appeared likely they would soon collapse. Their condition and the serious discomfort of everybody else compelled a general casting about for means of relief. True, the first impulse was one of hopelessness, but events proved that elements were still available with which resourceful minds could combat despair.
The first device along this line was preceded with a discovery that, in itself, was anything but hopeful. This discovery was announced by Gunseyt, who exhibited more nervous anxiety over the danger of their situation than any other member of the castaway party. Meanwhile Guy had not fully recovered from his astonishment following his identification of the “radio passenger” with the London “fog pirate” of the “squeak-roar” voice. Hence the mystery of this revelation tempered somewhat the gloom of a new disaster, disclosed by those same “squeak-roar” tones, when Gunseyt startled everybody by announcing:
“The rafts are spoiled; we can’t use them any more. The air cylinders are smashed.”
There was a general rush toward the rafts as the last alarming sentence was finished, and a hurried inspection was made by all. Several groans of dismay followed, also a few grumbling criticisms of the carelessness that had characterized their landing on the ice “beach.” The drive of the oars, reinforced by the lift and drop of the waves on which they had ridden “shoreward,” had brought the cylinders down upon the ice with such force as to wreck their further serviceability as air-and-water-tight buoys.
“Yes, he’s right,” declared Watson presently. “They’re not good for anything any more except firewood.”
“Then let’s build a fire and get warm,” proposed one of the men. “I’ve got a water-tight match-safe full of matches.”
The unanimous vote with which this proposal was speedily adopted was pitiful in its eagerness. Then followed a general attack upon the two rafts, which, although there was not a tool larger than a jacknife in this iceberg camp, quickly reduced them to crumpled heaps of wood, bended steel bars, and the battered junk of many recently well-shaped and air-tight metal cylinders. Watson, Guy, Glennon and half a dozen other men, who had knives in their pockets whittled away at pieces of the deck lumber, and soon produced a pile of fairly dry shavings and splints.